January
2015
Albert Eganyan speaks about issues and prospects of PPP projects in Russia on Rossiya 24 channel
On January 29, 2015 Chairman of VEGAS LEX Board of Partners Albert Eganyan gave an interview to the BusinessVector program on Rossiya 24 TV channel.
The State Duma, the Russian parliament’s lower house, is at the final stage of considering a bill on public-private partnerships (PPP), aimed at building a system for cooperation between government agencies and companies to build and operate roads, schools, hospitals, kindergartens, utilities services, social and cultural, and defense projects.
In the early 2000s, the government aimed for catching up with leading European economies in terms of the number of infrastructure projects by 2020. Incidentally, the year 2015, however difficult for the Russian economy, can also see a revival of the infrastructure development sector.
VEGAS LEX’s Albert Eganyan said that, before implementing a PPP project, it would be more productive to look at other countries’ negative experience, rather than positive. Their mistakes can teach us what we need to avoid while implementing such projects. Even regions plagued by economic problems can still implement PPP projects. However, in most cases they fail to do so due to a lack of government officials who are competent in public-private partnership, and who could appreciate the advantages and benefits in each specific case.
“Surprising as it is, this market’s infrastructure is hugely underdeveloped in Russia. A non-state pension fund that decides to finance a PPP project, will have to make a lot of efforts to actually invest the money,” Mr. Eganyan said.
The new legislation currently in the pipes will open up opportunities for private partners to initiate PPP projects and make proposals to government agencies after the project is finalized. The parliament plans to polish up the bill and adopt it late spring. The lawmakers are convinced that it should not be delayed because, given the economic slowdown, the PPP mechanism approved at the federal level can give a chance to many promising projects which would otherwise be put on hold.*
The interview was aired at 9:59 a.m. on January 29 and is available online here.
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For more information on VEGAS LEX’s public-private partnership and infrastructure projects, please go here.
* Source: Rossiya 24 TV channel